Journalist, entrepreneur and marketing firm founder. I write about higher ed and early career issues. Pithily. I was pontificating about Millennials and Millennial culture back when they were still known as Gen Y.

Fox News Employee Commits Career Suicide, Leaves Behind Object Lesson For The Rest Of Us

Gawker’s anonymous ‘FoxFox Mole’ posted his first dispatch about the goings-on behind the scenes at Fox News on April 10 at 3:11PM. Less than 36 hours later, he was put on indefinite leave by the network. To Gawker readers, he’s now Joe Muto and he claims he has much more dirt to spill on his (soon-to-be) former employer. He’s also the latest in a rash of high-profile stories of employees not going gentle into that good night – Greg Smith of Goldman Sachs, Carol Bartz of Yahoo!, that kooky JetBlue flight attendant who exited via the emergency slide and Keith Olbermann from pretty much every place he’s ever worked.

Now matter how much you loathe your employer and dream about going out in a blaze of glory, refusing to leave quietly, trying to sink the whole org or lashing out on your way out is always a terrible career move. Here’s why:

You will always look worse than the organization

Unless your departure also involves revealing illegal or unethical dealings for which you have scrupulously documented evidence, you’re going to look like the jerk if you kick up a fuss. Doesn’t matter if you have the moral high ground; Occam’s Razor says that it’s easier to believe that you’re a lone employee with a grudge lashing out at an easy target vs. a righteous crusader who says what other cowed employees refuse to. And if you’re leaving a powerful employer (or a church) on very bad terms, don’t doubt that they have the PR clout to back up such a narrative.

You will be an industry pariah

People talk. Even if your departure wasn’t a public spectacle, leaving with bad feelings, initiating confrontations or writing a 12-paper resignation letter makes you fodder for industry gossip. Word of your poor parting will get around. Count on it. And while you may think your sector is large enough that you can fade into anonymity, the reality of job mobility, networking events/professional associations and competitors who keep tabs on one another means that what happened at your old company will most certainly reach the ears of any prospective new companies. And more than a few hiring managers will think twice about hiring someone who has demonstrated in the most obvious way possible that they don’t play well with others and has a track record of making impulsive, myopic decisions.

You can’t predict the long-term damage to your career

Life takes some weird twists and turns. While Joe Muto may be relatively sure that he never wants to darken the doors of Fox News again, he can’t say with certainty that he’d never find himself competing for a job with another News Corp property. And he definitely can’t rule out the possibility that an old Fox boss or colleague might end up calling the shots somewhere else that he might want to work in the future. Or that a prospective new employer won’t Google his name and get an eyeful or call FOX’s HR department and get an earful. The momentary satisfaction of burning a bridge eventually gives way to the reality that you’re stuck smelling like smoke for a really long time and you’ve left yourself with no clear way across the river should you ever need to get back to the other side. Not smart.

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The point is you can’t force change. And Muto will not force change. All he is doing is gossiping for his 15 mins, which will come and go and FN will be the same and Muto will have one book and one scandal to his name and will probably have to work in sales.

Sure, one can have the spineless moral courage of a slave like J. Maureen Henderson who penned this, and live a somewhat comfortable life as a corporate lap dog. Joe will be fine, have very good friends, and live with his integrity in tact, unlike you, who will rationalize your soulless state by having an upgrade to first class on that business trip. I like Joe’s version of life.

This career suicide concept is a product of working a Narcissictic Power Structure; Everybody wants to look good over doing good work. If we lived a better society, we could have an employer ratings site where people can honestly put how bad or good an employer is with carefully tailored metrics to minimize negative feedback bias. This could act as a check and balance for employers, and our great country was built on this concept of checks and balances which keeps the power structure from becoming corrupted. Unfortunately, the USA has become a rigged game where if you know certain people, you get to prosper with ease. Skill development is not rewarded, blaming others is trait that makes you valuable in defending you boss, and problem solving goes out the window since everything is everybody elses fault. Ohhhhh… The Downward Spiral has begun!

It is a shame, even the documented moral high ground doesn’t help though. The engineer that warned about the O ring on the Challenger. He was let go about 6 months later and found it difficult to find work. I know this person, he was a lead accountant at Fanny & Freddy. He caught what they were doing to make the balance sheet look better so the upper level bonuses were better. He wouldn’t play ball so they were going to fire him and imply he caused it. He left but had it all documented. They left him alone but to this day he is finding it hard to find a job. Despite the working class hero crap, man against the machine and glorified in movies (Silkwood and that PCB poisoning in Mass) it doesn’t pay to speak up. The company lives on, the person withers and dies a anonymous death with an extra footnote in obituary.

This article, like many on both sides of the spectrum, leaves no doubt about the bias of the writer. What continuously fascinates me are the somewhat simple or even naive stances, regardless of bias, that appear in such otherwise classy publications as Forbes. The world view that serves as the context to the writer’s ideas is one that is so dated it is almost quaint, and yes, within that context his “proposals” about the ramifications of “committing career suicide” are quite safe and predictable. But it is such a big new world out there, so unpredictable and utterly beyond the quaint old model the writer clearly works strongly out of. And it is changing so rapidly, and our attitudes really do move it or hinder it from moving in a direction that would be so much more fun and satisfying than the silly humdrum status quo presented by the writer. People like Muto are serving a valuable function of breaking down the old crystalized forms that perpetuate a very slow and stagnant movement of energy, and I have no doubt that there will be plenty of incredible career (whatever that word means today!) opportunities for him and his Loki-like peers in this crazy new world that is morphing in front of our eyes.

I’d be amazed if there hasn’t been a breach of contract because of non disclosure. While there is an opportunity for whistle blowing – for example, a breach of health and safety legislation that could affect other employees; there really isn’t anything to gain from tittle-tattling about a company other than sensationalism.

“You will always look worse than the organization.” — You lost me there. Fox and Goldman are still far more despised in the public eye than either of the two who trashed them on departure. Also, I point out that part of Mr. Muto’s complaint was that he had already been blacklisted for working at Fox in the first place. I think this was an attempt to show that he was not part of the cult at Fox, thus removing him from the “blacklist.” I will also say that I do not think what he did was helpful in any way. Fox News fills a market that will not be going away. Even if one could bring down Fox, another entity would simply step in to fill the void. And in the meantime he is only confirming the belief that liberals are out to destroy Fox, which sadly appears to be true.

I think, as I replied to another comment, that this really won’t change much for Fox, which is a very politicized org in the first place – the supporters won’t waver and the haters will keep hating. Unless a departing employee has some incendiary (and substantiated) stuff in their arsenal, it’s far more likely that they’re going to have to wear the bad apple label than it is that the employer’s reputation is going to be seriously damaged by their criticism.

I’m not quite sure what comparison you’re trying to draw between a man who was a “mole” in an organization, something that if not illegal is highly, highly deceitful with someone who leaves an organization after becoming disgusted with it?

Sounds like you’re trying to protect your buddies over at GS by lumping that guy in with the crazy Jet Blue attendant and this leftist idiot who gave up the dream job with O’Reilly to go work for Gawker, the National Enquirer of the Internet!

Perhaps he is taking the extremely, extremely long view that this will somehow raise his star in the leftist world. But if I’m a leftist newspaper owner how do I know this guy wont decide he’s more leftist one day and betray me for the next hippest leftist assignment? (This should have been the focus of your article.)

Career schmear! What a load of conformity crap. We are lucky that not everyone is consumed with the inevitable ass-kissing of the business world. I was a whistle blower and hell raiser more than once when I encountered bad bosses and even illegal activities. I spoke up, got a few threats, and even an escort to the front door, and today I look back and feel great about it. When I asked fellow employees why they didn’t speak up, they always mentioned “family” or “career,” or some other reason, some of which can be legitimate at times. But, we desperately need more rebels. By the way, I own seven houses today so it must not have hurt my “career” all that much (go into sales if you are that worried; in sales you get judged by results, not conformity).

Another excellent look at the workplace, post-workplace. I can understand formers dying to rip the masks off the idiots in charge, especially from churches. I’ve even wanted to do it myself on more than one occasion. But what’s always stopped me was the pragmatic: a lot of those people mingle in the same social and business networks (oftentimes, interspersed… schmoozing factor) as my husband. It’s not often fair, but it’s inevitably the more mature thing to do, regardless of job prospects or not. Also, it’s a shame that those remaining in charge and their underlings can’t be trusted to be as discreet. It seems they can trash anybody that used to frequent their organization—employee or congregation member—in any manner, and it’s okay.

Sounds like Muto is a sour grapes left winger. I guess you can’t let your political feelings get in the way of doing your job. I wouldn’t be any different than a right winger working for MSNBC.

If you want to collect a paycheck from a company that makes serious money you have to have the see, hear no evil approach. It’s been that way since our existence.

“Or that a prospective new employer won’t Google his name and get an eyeful or call FOX’s HR department and get an earful.”

I may be wrong but most HR departments don’t give out a lot of info these days other than dates employed.

Nothing is private anymore. We try to expose people as much possible. A prospective employer now asks for your Facebook password. A classroom harasses a teacher into a nervous breakdown and we put it on Youtube.

No, the ONLY lesson ANYONE should learn from this event is that, if you are going to expose such things, GET BETTER PREPARED and don’t be such a tech noob as to make the incredibly awful mistakes he made.